Grand Canyon adventure turned tragic

by Richard Ruelas - Jan. 4, 2010 04:45 PMThe Arizona Republic

Bryce Gillies came to a clearing in the Grand Canyon and peered down at the Colorado River rushing past him. On either side of him were stark canyon walls enveloping him in this place of natural beauty. The 20-year-old was thirsty and hot after a long day of brutal hiking on this Saturday in mid-July, but he could do nothing about it. He had ditched his water bottles and food, and there was no way he could go back and reach them. He had jumped sheer rock faces - some more than 30 feet - on his way down, and it would be nearly impossible to climb back up them. There was also no way to the river below. The clearing led to a drop of around 80 feet. The fall would have killed him. He could not head left or right. The tall rock walls that defined his boundaries were nearly vertical and offered no footings. This place is where Gillies' hike would end.

Gillies, an Eagle Scout, engineering student and experienced outdoorsman, came to the Grand Canyon to cap off what had been a transformative summer. He had just returned from a remote village in Africa where he had volunteered to construct a building for a medical clinic. It was an empowering few weeks that stretched Gillies' physical and mental abilities and left him energized and fulfilled.

He wanted to celebrate the trip, and his 20th birthday, with a hike through the Grand Canyon. A backpacking magazine article he had read described a North Rim hike to a remote location where water gushed out of a limestone rock wall, transforming the desert landscape into a lush, green oasis.

Treacherous beauty

Rangers believe Gillies deviated from his intended path and hiked along a dry creek bed that offered no shade. The path he had read about was several yards away. It was that path that led to the spectacular natural spring. It was that path that would have led him through a loop back out of the Canyon and allowed him to continue his life.

Gillies became one of 12 tourists in 2009 who died at the Grand Canyon, the natural wonder that plays host to around 4.5 million visitors annually. He was one of the 10 visitors who died accidentally within the Canyon, four of whom were on backcountry trails. (The other two deaths were from a heart attack and a suicide.)

The Grand Canyon can be as naturally treacherous as it is gorgeous. Its beauty can sometimes mask those potential dangers.

Rangers say tourists are frequently lured into what might be called an impulsive hike. They cautiously inch their way along a trail at the South Rim, sometimes in flip-flops, and are pulled by the scenery to keep going. Some reach the Colorado River before they realize they are unprepared to make the hike back up and need to be flown out by helicopter.

Experienced hikers, inspired by exhilarating tales in magazines and guidebooks, come from all over the world to conquer the backcountry trails. A permitting office at the Canyon offers advice and gently prods people away from dangerous hikes, sometimes by asking hikers to leave information about their next of kin.

Gillies seemed well-qualified for the hike, having spent his childhood tromping through the mountains of Virginia. His Eagle Scout training taught him to be self-reliant and to use a compass and map in remote areas. He had recently conquered Mount Baldy in California and Sandia Peak in New Mexico. He had also hiked the Grand Canyon's main trails during his freshman year at Northern Arizona University.

Gillies also seemed to have a good temperament for this hike. He could be competitive and determined. But he was not headstrong. Nor was he reckless.

New challenges

"We were wondering if he'd be safe in Africa," his mother, Warna Gillies, said. "Here, we lose him in the Grand Canyon. You just don't know what's going to happen."

Gillies grew up in Fairfax County, Va., outside of Washington, D.C. He joined the Boy Scouts, deepening his love of the outdoors. He stayed with it through high school - something only about half of Scouts do - and became an Eagle Scout.

Gillies was fond of the Appalachian Trail and the mountain parks around his Virginia home. His father said he would sometimes average 20 miles a day.

With the Scouts, he learned navigation skills, twice visiting the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, a 200-square-mile wilderness area where Scouts prove their mettle, said his scoutmaster, Jim Ahlgrimm.

That New Mexico camp - rocky and rugged - was different from the tree-laden hills of Virginia. Gillies yearned for more adventures in this new terrain.

After high school, Gillies visited colleges out West and fell in love with the Flagstaff campus of NAU.

It was on the NAU campus that the mechanical-engineering major found Engineers Without Borders. The group organized students who wanted to work on volunteer projects that used their skills.

In the past few years, the chapter had traveled to a remote village called Yua, in the northern portion of Ghana, that had no electricity or plumbing and sporadic access to clean water. The main project for the summer of 2009 was building nurses' quarters near the medical clinic.

Gillies arrived in Ghana's capital May 25, according to an online journal of the group's activities. It was 100 degrees, with 80 percent humidity.

But the day Gillies arrived, the man who had been the chief engineer on the project came down with a severe case of malaria that required him to be hospitalized. Within a few days, he decided to head back to the United States. The team's faculty adviser went with him.

Now, the engineering would be in the hands of Gillies, who did not know the terrain or the language and who had never constructed a building.

Africa clinic

Jessica Lum, who was also on her first trip to Ghana, said she felt scared and nervous about suddenly managing the project.

"All of a sudden, we were left with this huge task to do, and the people who know anything about the culture were gone," she said.

The students recruited people from the village to help with labor. Most of them did not speak English, Lum said, and those who did had a tough time pronouncing Bryce's name. He became known instead as "Bright."

The new building was constructed by July. It gave the nurses a place to sleep, opening up a room in the small clinic that they had been using as a bedroom. The clinic would be powered by a solar array that Gillies also engineered.

Gillies and two other members of the team came back to the United States. Lum stayed behind to put the finishing touches on the clinic and to do more volunteer work.

Gillies had about a month before classes began at NAU. He had planned to spend a good chunk of that time at his parents' house in Virginia. But before then, he had a few days free at his apartment in Flagstaff. And the Grand Canyon beckoned.

"He chose to do (the hike) on one of the harder times of the year," his father said. "He kind of took on the Canyon."

Gillies had seen an article in the online edition of Backpacker magazine that told of the Deer Creek-Thunder River Loop.

The trail, the Web site said, "dishes out enough superlatives to send a guidebook writer running for a thesaurus."

Very strong hikers could do the 27.6-mile loop in three days, the Web site said. Gillies considered himself a very strong hiker.

The plan, according to the article Gillies read, had him taking the Bill Hall trail down to the Thunder River Trail. This was supposed to be the hardest part of the hike, with a drop of 2,000 feet over 2.5 miles. There was then a 3-mile hike across the relatively flat Esplanade before climbing down to Surprise Valley.

After that, it was supposed to be "payoff time," the article said.

Last time he was seen

Gillies would see the Thunder River spring out of a limestone wall. He would hike along its banks as it roared to Tapeats Creek. "This could also very well be the toughest long-weekend hike in Grand Canyon National Park," the online article said, "but you won't regret a single sunny mile."

Gillies talked with his parents about his planned hike. His father let him know that admission to the national parks was free that weekend, coinciding with his birthday. His parents didn't tell him that his birthday gift would be waiting at his Flagstaff apartment when he returned: a year's pass to the national parks.

Gillies talked to friends about the hike, his father said, but none could make it. One toyed with going and called Gillies that morning - Saturday, July 18 - but Gillies was already on his way to the North Rim.

The last specific time that anyone saw Gillies was at a general store that day. According to the National Park Service investigation, Gillies stopped in and bought a map for the dirt roads that lead to the trail. It was noon.

It would take two more hours to drive to the parking lot at the Bill Hall trailhead, said Anne Peterson, the ranger who was the incident commander in the Gillies search.

Gillies parked his car at the lot and loaded his backpack, leaving some food and a gallon of water behind in his car, anticipating being hungry and thirsty after his hike out three days later.

Investigators believe he started hiking around 3 p.m. The temperature on the rim reached 93 degrees that day. At the bottom of the Canyon, where he was headed, it would reach 114.

Gillies did not request a backcountry permit, as is required for overnight hikes in the Grand Canyon. He also didn't file his route with park rangers. Had he done so, park officials would have tried to talk him out of taking this brutal hike in the intense July heat.

Earlier that summer, the National Park Service sent out a warning about extreme temperatures at the Grand Canyon. It advised avoiding hiking completely between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. "These temperatures are beyond unpleasant or uncomfortable - they are, in fact, dangerous," the notice read, "and if you fail to factor the heat into your plan, the results could be tragic."

Surprise Valley

There is no way to pinpoint Gillies' exact route. Nor is it possible to know when he hiked to each point. But rangers did find clues that told them where Gillies was, and their experience leads them to sketch a rough idea of Gillies' descent into the Grand Canyon.

From his car, Gillies hiked about 2 miles along some switchbacks that led down into the Canyon. Once through the first descent, Gillies found himself on the Esplanade, a long, flat ridge rutted with potholes. It looks like a moonscape. Rangers figure it would have been 8 p.m. when Gillies reached this point.

It's common for hikers taking this trail to spend a night on the Esplanade's edge. And if Gillies did, setting up his tent on the rock surface, he would have enjoyed an unparalleled view of the Grand Canyon spread out below him. "On the rim, you don't get to see in the Canyon," Peterson said. "From the Esplanade, you are in the Canyon. You can see the whole thing."

Gillies' father is consoled by the thought of his son's peaceful night.

"He must have been the happiest guy on the planet," Randy Gillies said. "He was out doing something he loved to do, in a place that he loved so much."

Rangers found no sign of a campground, but, as a trained Eagle Scout, Gillies would have left no trace of his night there.

If he did camp there, he most likely started his descent of the Canyon's red wall at sunrise. It takes an experienced hiker about an hour to climb down.

At the bottom of the descent, Gillies entered Surprise Valley. It's not known how the area got its name. But there are theories based on hikers' experiences. It is a surprise that it is so hot. And it is a surprise because it seems every direction out is up.

Surprise Valley is shaped like a bowl. The low-rising side walls trap in heat and also make it seem like an unending stretch of desert.

It was in Surprise Valley that Gillies made a crucial error.

Ears playing tricks

Gillies was about a half-mile away from Thunder River, the waterway that cascades out of a cave wall. A hikers' guide describes it as "almost too good to be true" after the dusty, hot miles through Surprise Valley.

Gillies, it appears, had an opposite impression. His path might have seemed too desolate to be true. This can't be the right way.

His ears might also have played tricks on him. Depending on the way the wind is blowing, hikers in Surprise Valley can hear the sound of the water thundering out of the canyon wall. But that sound can bounce in odd directions, said Peterson, who hiked the same trail a month before Gillies did. The ear thinks the water is coming from one way, even though the map says to keep going another way.

Gillies followed the trail up a hill. It would have seemed logical that Thunder River was on the other side. Instead, he saw another valley, leading to another low hill. Had he kept going a quarter-mile more, to the top of that next hill, he would have seen a spot of white on the canyon wall. Below it was a vivid line of bright green that marked the path of Thunder River.

Instead, Gillies decided to backtrack. He dropped his backpack a few yards off the trail. He took out some food and water bottles and put them in a plastic bag. He also took out a head lamp. He then started retracing his steps.

The path along Surprise Valley crosses several drainages. Gillies' Eagle Scout training would have told him that dry creek beds eventually reach water. But, on the East Coast, a hiker doesn't have to go very far to find that water. In the desert, beds can stay dry for much of the year.

The Bonita Creek drainage runs only when severe monsoon storms force water down into it. Over time, those waters carved a rugged, violent path to the Colorado River.

Gillies, coming back across it, found something alluring about it. He decided to leave the trail and follow the dry creek bed.

It was not an easy trek. As soon as he left the trail, he encountered knee-high desert scrub brush that tore at his bare legs. But he wanted to keep going. He needed water.

Steep drops

There were no trees like those along his beloved Appalachian Trail, where hikers are covered by a canopy grown by nature. Here, he was in the open. From the midmorning to late afternoon, the temperature would get brutally hot.

It is possible that Gillies came down into Surprise Valley in the evening the same day he started his hike. But rangers think it more likely he was in this area in the day. The intense sun tends to dry the brain, they say, and that leads to a person not thinking clearly.

As he entered the creek bed, Gillies decided to drop the plastic bag that contained his food and water containers.

A little bit into the drainage, Gillies encountered a field of boulders the size of basketballs. Climbing rocks was one of Gillies' favorite activities, something he learned to do after moving to Flagstaff. He would do it here, scrambling on hands and feet for about a hundred yards.

Then he reached what would be the first of several steep drops. Rangers call it a "spill," and it is essentially a waterfall with no water.

They started off small, around 20 feet or so, manageable to an experienced hiker by scrambling down it, using hands and feet.

But after a few of these, he had no option of turning back. Rescuers later used rock-climbing equipment to climb these spills, and Gillies had none of that equipment. He was following this path until he reached water. This was the way he was going to go.

As he continued his hike, the ground became soft sand, like that found on a beach that feet sink into.

And along the path, Gillies kept coming to those spills - those dry waterfalls - that started getting steeper.

1 last, deep spill

Ahead of him, though, he could see the south wall of the Grand Canyon. He knew the Colorado River was below him and that it was getting closer.

As he dropped deeper and deeper into the Canyon, the temperature kept rising. The canyon walls around the creek bed also kept getting higher, radiating the brutal heat.

A bit farther on, Gillies came across a 30-foot spill. From this vantage point, he could see the Colorado River rushing below. Just a little more. Just get past this drop.

Rescuers tracing Gillies' path later did not think he had made it past this point. But then they saw footprints at the bottom of the spill. They told his father they didn't know how his son made it down the vertical drop, nor how he survived it.

From there, the sandy creek bed flattened and widened. Footprints showed that Gillies staggered through this area, sometimes walking in a circle.

He might have been dehydrated and stumbling. Or he might have been walking while looking up, like a tourist looking at a city's tall skyscrapers. Gillies might have been searching for a way out of the creek bed, Peterson said.

The Colorado River was about a half-mile away. He could hear the water, just as he might have heard the water up in Surprise Valley. Only this time, he knew which direction to go. If he could just get there.

The Canyon's walls grew taller around him as the path continued to widen.

Gillies came across one more spill. This one was dark, narrow and deep.

Topographic maps provided by the United States Geological Survey show the spill to be about 80 feet. Park rangers estimated it to be between 70 and 100 feet, about the height of a seven- to 10-story building.

Gillies did not know what it measured. He just would have calculated that making the jump would have led to his sure death.

Goodbye messages

Rescuers found Gillies' body here, sitting on the ground, resting against a boulder. The Coconino County medical examiner later determined Gillies died of heatstroke and dehydration.

His parents are pained by thinking of their son's final hours.

"I know my son did a hell of a job to get through these things," Randy Gillies said. "Those rangers said, 'Sir, he's one tough kid.' "

Gillies was supposed to be out of the Grand Canyon by Monday and on his way to Virginia by Tuesday. His father called park officials Tuesday when no one had heard from him.

Gillies was found Saturday, July 25. A search party on a boat along the Colorado River spotted his body at the top of the spill. Rescuers used rock-climbing equipment to reach his body. One week after he entered the Grand Canyon, Gillies was taken out of it.

Back in Ghana, Lum received a phone call telling her Gillies was dead.

"I kind of felt alone at that point," she said. As the only Westerner left in the area, in a country where death is accepted as part of God's will, she thought there would be no one to understand her grief.

She started telling people in the village about Gillies' death. But first she had to explain what hiking was and what the Grand Canyon was.

The nurses at the new clinic put a picture of Gillies on the wall as a dedication. In the photo, Bryce is standing outdoors and smiling.

Months after his death, Gillies' parents received the cellphone he had with him. It did not receive a signal in the Canyon, but Gillies used it to tap out two memos to friends and family.

"Life is good whether it is long or short," Gillies wrote. "I was fortunate enough to do and see much more than most, and for that good fortune, I am most thankful."

His messages included dashes of humor. He wrote that he was thankful he had his BlackBerry because it was easier to use it instead of chiseling a message in the rocks. He said he believed in God and was unsure what the afterlife held, " . . . but I hope there is water," he wrote.

His battery dying, Gillies typed out a final sentence: "I feel like going into the wild is a calling all feel, some answer and some die for."

The Northern Arizona University chapter of Engineers Without Borders has started a memorial fund in honor of Bryce Gillies.

Donations can be sent to Aaron Denham, Department of Anthropology, NAU, P.O. Box 15200, Flagstaff, AZ 86011. Checks should be made out to "NAU Foundation - Engineers Without Borders." In the memo line of the check, write Fund 5125, Bryce Gillies Memorial.